Ream was also born in a log cabin, which adds a nice sprinkle of kismet to her Lincoln story.

And she wasn’t just the first woman to receive a commission from the US Senate, she was also the youngest human being to ever earn such an honor.

Actually, it nearly did happen that she didn’t finishing the statue – but it was because members of the Senate accused her of influencing the vote for Andrew Johnson’s impeachment and threatened to kick her out of her studio in the Capitol basement.

She also had to deal with Italians accusing her of using their sculptors in secret, instead of doing her work herself.

But when your statue stays in the Rotunda for 100 or so years after all of your critics are dead, I guess you get the last laugh: